Conclusions

Graphics card manufacturers often use reference design for cards based on a newly announced GPU. As such, products from different brands may look very identical to one another, with the only exceptions usually being the sticker attached to the cooler’s body and the packaging. Their performance will be similar as well. Therefore, what really matters are perhaps the additional accessories inside the box.

Some interesting extras are included in MSI N580GTX M2D15D5’s package: a mini-HDMI to HDMI converter and a 6-pin to 8-pin power connector converter. The former could come in handy when you need to output the display to an HDMI device, while the latter would useful if your PSU lacks an 8-pin PCI Express connector. Of course, the standard DVI to D-SUB converter can also be found amongst the item.

When it comes to performance, the GeForce GTX 580 is simply awesome, outperforming every other single-GPU card in the market today. No question about it. The frame rate across all of our tests stayed well above 30 FPS, except in Metro 2033 under “very high” graphics setting where it only spewed out 28.517 FPS. The card should have no problem rendering PhysX effects in games, as shown by our Batman: Arkham Asylum benchmark where it produced more than 100 FPS even as PhysX was turned on and set to “high”. If you feel like it, you can further improve the card’s already stellar performance by applying some degree of overclocking. The MSI Afterburner software will help you with that.

Pros

Very high performance

mini-HDMI to HDMI and PCI Express 6-pin to 8-pin converters

MSI Afterburner software bundle

Cons

The MSI Afterburner utility is a bit outdated and offers no Core Voltage adjustment. You will need to update it to gain access to that specific parameter.